Guide to the Native American Educational Services, Robert Rietz Papers 1876-1982

Descriptive Summary

Special Collections Research Center
University of Chicago Library
1100 East 57th Street
Chicago, Illinois 60637 U.S.A.

Abstract:

Robert Rietz was a pioneer in the so-called “Action Anthropology” movement, creator and promoter of educational projects for Native American college students, and Director of the American Indian Center in Chicago. The bulk of Rietz’s personal papers cover the period from 1950 to 1954, when he worked as community analyst and relocation officer for the Bureau of Indian Affairs at the Fort Berthold Indian Reservation, North Dakota. Rietz’s papers are of particular interest for researchers of mid-twentieth century Native American populations, and offer a window into the complex dynamics played out between scholarly research, Native American populations, and Federal Indian Affairs policies. This collection also provides valuable insights into Native American Indian population in urban centers and relocation practices in the early 1950s, as well as materials pertaining to a number of educational projects Rietz was involved in from the mid-1950s to the early 1960s. Also included are field notes, official bulletins, and newsletters from different Indian Reservations.

Information on Use

Access

The collection is open for research.

Citation

When quoting material from
this collection, the preferred citation is: Native American Educational Services. Robert Rietz. Papers, [Box #, Folder #], Special Collections Research Center, University of Chicago Library

Biographical Note

Robert W. Rietz (1914-1971) was an anthropologist known for his work among Native American populations in Iowa and North Dakota, as well as the highly-esteemed Director of the American Indian Center in Chicago, where he served from 1958 until his death. Rietz was a veteran of World War II and pursued graduate studies at the University of Chicago under the supervision of Sol Tax without having attended High School. In the summer of 1948, Rietz was one of the original six members of the “Fox Project” to be sent to Tama, Iowa, alongside Lloyd Fallers, Grace Gredys, Walter Miller, Davida Wolffson, and Lisa Redfield Peattie. In his mid-thirties and as one of the most experienced members in the group, Rietz left a long-lasting impression amongst his peers and the population he worked with. Gredys recalled Rietz as lacking “respect for authority, age, and all those great things,” but as a “serious person” that nurtured with his colleague Miller a “persona of wise-cracking.” Years after he left Tama, students from the University of Chicago sent to work on the Fox field school still registered inquiries about Rietz from people he had met years earlier.

After finishing his Master’s thesis at the University of Chicago in 1950, he moved with Robert Merrill to the Indian Reservation at Fort Berthold, North Dakota. The new Fort Berthold research project, devised as part of the “action anthropology” project, was meant to assist the members of the Three Affiliated Tribes (Hidatsa, Mandan, Arikara) in relocating from their lands following the construction of the Garrison Dam, approved in the late 1940s and concluded in 1953. While Merrill pursued a strict research project and left only a few months later, Rietz remained in the Reservation as the Agency’s “community analyst.” Two years later, he was designated the Agency’s “relocation officer.” Over the course of these four years, Rietz gained the respect of the different parties of the reservation, from the Indian community to the officers of the federal Bureau of Indian Affairs. In 1952, he refused to be transferred to the Sioux Cheyenne River reservation in South Dakota to start a new relocation project, stating that it was not his intention to help implement official policy on Indian Affairs that clashed with his own beliefs. Despite some reservations from fellow anthropologists, Rietz managed to strike a balance between his work as a researcher and his responsibilities as a federal agent. According to Sol Tax, Rietz’s “greatest problem turned out to be avoiding moving ‘up’ to higher positions in the B.I.A.!”

Upon his resignation from Fort Berthold, effective October 1954, Rietz returned to Chicago and the “Action Anthropology” group, taking up a research affiliation at the University of Chicago. Over the next three years he pursued a close working relationship with Native American populations in the Tama Indian Project and its summer field training school. Until becoming the Director of the American Indian Center in 1958, Rietz would remain engaged in a number of other educational and health care projects meant to provide for Native American populations, including an arts and crafts cooperative (Tamacraft), and the Summer Workshops for Native American Indian College Students, of which he was a founder, both in Colorado and in Canada. In the late 1960s, Rietz was also responsible for a course on the “History and Culture of the American Indian” at Northeastern Illinois State College.

Scope Note

The Robert W. Rietz Papers span the years 1876-1982, with the bulk of materials covering the period from 1950 through 1954. These materials reflect Rietz’s tenure at the Bureau of Indian Affairs, and include reports, scholarly papers, and conference proceedings, as well as a large collection of publications from Indian Reservations and other organizations working with American Indians in the 1950s and 1960s. The collection also includes official and personal correspondence and papers that bear testimony to the dynamic social and collective life of an Indian Reservation.

The collection is divided in four series. Series I (Fort Berthold Agency) constitutes the bulk of Rietz’s papers and is sub-divided chronologically in two subseries: the first (1876-1949) gathers materials prior to Rietz’s arrival. Subseries 2 (1950-1954) follows his time as community analyst and relocation officer. Common to both sub-series are materials pertaining to Indian Legislation, including petitions and hearings of Senate committees on Indian Affairs; Tribal Council documents, including committee meetings minutes, resolutions, and electoral processes; the education situation at the reservation, including school enrollment figures and training programs; and finally, the Garrison Dam project, from the negotiation leading up to the purchase of Indian land in the late 1940s to various studies conducted by the Missouri River Basin Investigation office. Subseries 2 presents the Agency’s bureaucracy more thoroughly, both within the reservation and in relation to the Bureau more broadly, and offers a number of research possibilities into the civic and community life of the reservation. Also included in this subseries are personal accounts on the shortcomings and successes of the Agency’s national relocation and assistance programs, data on Indian population, as well as the complete collection of the Agency’s News Bulletins and Daily News Sheets for these years.

Series II (Action Anthropology) contains ethnographic and anthropological material from the Tama/Fox project in Iowa and Forth Berthold, from the late 1940s to the early 1960s. Subseries 1 pertains to work led by Sol Tax among the Mesquakies and Fox Indians, conducted among others by Rietz, Fred Gearing, Eugene Fugle, and Lisa Peattie, and includes ethnographic material (field notes, manuscript drafts), publications, research proposals, and financial records. Subseries 2 is more strictly anthropological. Of particular relevance here are field notes by Robert Merrill, Edward Bruner, W. H. Brokaw, Ethel Nurge, and Rietz himself. In addition, this subseries includes genealogical charts of members of the Indian community, as well as Rietz’s professional and personal documents and correspondence from his years in Fort Berthold.

Series III contains materials pertaining to educational projects in which Rietz was directly involved, including the Summer Workshops on American Indian Affairs for American Indian College Students (1956-1962), the Canadian Indian Workshop at the University of Manitoba (1966), as well as Rietz’s teaching career in Illinois (1967-68). Also included are documents from Rietz’s tenure at the American Indian Center in Chicago directly related to educational projects as well as other community agencies dealing with Native American affairs, including but not limited to, the Clyde Warrior Institute in American studies, the American Friends Service Committee, the Carnegie Corporation for Cross-Cultural Education, the Chicago Indian Ministry, the American Indian Development center, and the University of Chicago Community Service Workshop.

Series IV consists of publications, organized thematically in six sub-series: subseries 1 contains official bulletins and newsletters published by Indian Reservations, including the neighboring agency of Fort Yates (“Standing Rock”) in North Dakota, or the Pine Ridge Bulletin, in South Dakota. These bulletins, collected during Rietz’s tenure at Fort Berthold and later in Chicago, include publications from Indian reservations across the country since the early 1950s to 1970; by itself, this is a valuable compilation of official materials published within the context of Indian reservations. Subseries 2 gathers Rietz’s collection of scientific publications, journals and articles organized alphabetically. Subseries 3 includes conference proceedings on Native American issues from the 1940s the late 1960s, as well as unpublished papers organized alphabetically by author. Subseries 4 consists of Rietz’s newspapers clippings, organized chronologically from the 1930s to 1970, and subseries 5 and 6 include Governmental and non-Governmental publications on Indian affairs, respectively. The bulk of these materials pertain to the Federal Department of Health, Education, and Welfare, as well as the Bureau of Indian Affairs under the Department of the Interior. State publications include for the most part documents issued by North and South Dakota state agencies. Finally, subseries 6 covers the national and local organizations dealing with Native American populations, from the 1940s to 1970, as well as some publications included posthumously.

Related Resources

The following related resources are located in the Department of Special Collections: